2017 covers

Saturday, April 23, 2016

How did you come to write speculative fiction? What attracted you to the genre?

I loved movies about aliens and strange worlds and creatures ever since I was a child. When speculative fiction became popular in the romance genre I was in heaven. I actually wrote a vampire romance long before editors would even look at it.

Are you a plotter? Pantser? Or somewhere in-between?

I’m a pantser through and through. Plotting a story just doesn’t work for me. I do a lot of work on my characters but that’s about it. I go in blind and see what jumps out at me. Afterward I go back and do a kind of plotting, ensuring everything on the page is as clear as it is in my mind.

Do you have a favourite of your characters?

No, though my aliens will always be special to me because they were published first. Normally the character I work on is my favourite.

What are you currently working on?

I’m editing my story about a very arrogant dragon, it is titled I am dragon. I am also editing Sabrina and the Gargoyle. A gargoyle story set in Cape Town.

What is your favourite part of the process of writing?

I love every part. That first spark of an idea. The rough draft. The struggle during edits to make the story work. The editing with the publisher. Though if I HAD to choose I would say the editing. I love when I start to add nuances and I see the story come alive with every bit of improvement I make.

What can we expect from Marie Dry in the future?

Many stories I can’t wait to share. More Alien books, a dragon book and a cyborg book. After Alien Betrayed I will hand in Sabrina and the Gargoyle. I also have some contemporaries that I enjoyed working on.

I am reading Hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell and also The War of Art.

Do you have a favourite spec fiction movie or TV series?

Stargate Atlantis is my all time favourite. If I want to watch something and I’m not sure what I feel like I put Stargate Atlantis on.

Do you have advice for emerging writers?

Write every day and write what you enjoy. Even if it is just a paragraph be consistent and write every day and soon you will have a manuscript.

~~~

Thanks, Marie Dry!

Alien Mine

In a bleak future where government systems are breaking down and lawless bands of men terrorize the country, botanist Natalie Hanson fears for her life and hides in a cave in the Rocky Mountains. When she is captured by human raiders, a fierce alien appears and slays her attackers. Natalie is now held captive in her own cave by the sexy and striking alien commander, Zacar, who informs her that she will be his breeder. Natalie soon realizes that these aliens worship strength. So what will happen when Zacar finds out she has severe asthma?

Friday, April 1, 2016

When I'm looking for something new to read, I often seem to gravitate
to stories with ghosts, or at least something supernatural, in them.This post could be subtitled "Do you really need a ghost in every
story you write?"And the answer is, of course, the same one I give when asked if every
good story needs a dragon ... possibly not. But aren't stories with ghosts and
dragons often more fun!

Have you lain awake at night and felt someone or something watching
you? Walked into an empty room and seen flickers of black spots at the corners
of your eyes? Felt an unexplained coldness cut to your core? There could be a
perfectly sane scientific explanation. In fact various friends give me
scientific explanations constantly! But could you have experienced something we
don't really understand? Could something supernatural be stretching out to
reach you?

Do ghosts really exist?

I think they might.

My grandfather died when I was
four years old. My parents thought me too young to go to his funeral and he was
whisked away by adults who spoke in whispers and pushed me out of the bedroom
in which he died. But I never forgot him, he taught me to read and cuddled me
while I read haltingly from my Children's Bible almost every evening.

Shortly after I started proper school, I must have been six or seven
years old, I fought with my mother and ran away from home. It wasn't a
well-planned escape, I had no money and only the shorts and T-shirt I was
wearing.

At dusk I became disoriented and realised I was lost. I pressed myself
into a smelly doorway and slumped to my knees. How would I ever get home? And
what would my mother do to me when I did?

It felt hopeless. I had no idea which way to walk. Adults sped by,
several older ladies tutted at me, as if unaccompanied children had no place in
the street under the setting sun. But as I sat in that doorway I heard my
grandfather's voice calling me.

I followed the sound to the end of the
alleyway, then along the street and across the road. At the busy intersection I
didn't know what to do, until an elderly man crossed the road and turned into
another street. As he disappeared around the corner, he lifted his cap and
turned to smile at me. I sped after my grandfather; of course he wasn't at the
corner when I got there. But the road to my house was.

Had Grandpa come to help me get home? My mother didn't believe me, and
boy was I in trouble for both running away and lying.

I remember her anger.

"How can you have seen him," she said.

I'll never forget her flushed face just inches from mine.

"I've never seen him. Not once. And God knows I've begged to hear
from him." Tears welled in her eyes.

I didn't know what to do. It was a relief when I was sent to my room
without any dinner.

At the time, I was so sure Grandpa had helped me. I don't know how I
would have got home otherwise. I didn't realise until I was much older that my
mom wasn't angry with me. She was desperately upset that she'd not seen her
dad, and I thought I had.

I wish I'd been old enough to share the experience with her rather than
flee from her distress.

Kim Cleary is the award-winning author of Path Unchosen, the first title in the Daughter
of Ravenswood series, which earned a bronze IPPY award in 2015. She grew up in
Birmingham, United Kingdom, studied medieval history and psychology at Adelaide
University in Southern Australia, and has worked all over Australia and in
London.

Forced to leave a successful career in marketing after
multiple sclerosis damaged her hands and prevented her from typing, Kim learned
how to write using voice software.

A self-described chocoholic, Kim loves writing, gardening,
cooking, playing with her dogs, and spending time with friends. She lives with
her husband and two dogs, an adorable Cocker Spaniel and a mischievous Moodle,
in Melbourne, Australia.